U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs fetal personhood appeal

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

Oct 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to decide whether fetuses are entitled to constitutional rights in light of its June ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide, steering clear for now of another front in America's culture wars.

The justices turned away an appeal by a Catholic group and two women of a lower court's ruling holding that fetuses lacked the proper legal standing to challenge a 2019 state law codifying the right to abortion in line with the Roe precedent. The two women, pregnant at the time when the case was first filed, sued on behalf of their fetuses and later gave birth.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in June's ruling overturning the abortion rights precedent that in the decision the court took no position on "if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth." Some Republicans at the state level have pursued what are called fetal personhood laws, like one enacted in Georgia affecting fetuses starting at around six weeks of pregnancy, that would grant fetuses before birth a variety of legal rights and protections like those of any person. Under such laws, termination of a pregnancy could be considered murder under the law.

Lawyers for the group Catholics for Life and the two Rhode Island women - one named Nichole Leigh Rowley and the other using the pseudonym Jane Doe - argued that the case "presents the opportunity for this court to meet that inevitable question head on" by deciding if fetuses possess due process and equal protection rights conferred by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-rebuffs-fetal-personhood-appeal-2022-10-11/

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Article updated. Original article -

Oct 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to decide whether fetuses are entitled to constitutional rights in light of its June ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide, steering clear for now of another front in America's culture wars.

The justices turned away an appeal by a Catholic group and two women of a lower court's ruling holding that fetuses lacked the proper legal standing to challenge a 2019 state law codifying the right to abortion in line with the Roe precedent. The two women, pregnant at the time when the case was first filed, sued on behalf of their fetuses and later gave birth.

[yankee87]

1. Women are just incubators

This is leading down a path where women are just incubators and only a clump of cells matter, not the life of the women. Expand the court!!

[dalton99a]

2. Next appeal by Catholic League for the Protection of Spermatozoa

[machoneman]

4. Watching the tv show 'The Handmaid's Tale"? All here should as that's what old white R men want.

[Gruenemann]

5. Every Sperm Is Sacred

[Farmer-Rick]

3. The fetus has special rights not given legally to any human being in the US

The fetus, in forced birth states, gets to use a grown adult's body without consent. It gets to use a functionally adult's body for 9 months without the expressed permission of the adult....and no having sex is not consent (No more than getting into a car is consent to have a car accident.)

The fetus gets to force a person who has reached menses to make their body available to it without the willing cooperation of that person. Not consent, no willingness and no concern for the person who must under threat of jail and punishment give up their body to be used for 9 months. Then the donor must suffer an extremely painful out come that may kill the donor.

And the fetus gets priority over the life of the person being used. Imagine donating a kidney and being told that if the 1st kidney doesn't take, they will be back for the 2nd kidney which will probably kill you. And in an emergency, the fetus gets to live but not the person who has been donating their body.

What person gets such extraordinary special rights over another person's body and life? Only in feudalism and slavery would this be considered normal.

But when a court creates laws out of their imaginary sky daddy, no telling who gets any rights.

[Delphinus]

30. Nice explanation.

I like this a lot.

[2naSalit]

6. Not surprised that they bailed on this one.

It's a bullshit claim and a bogus case. Those fetuses were never in danger of being aborted by those women nor was anyone going to ever force them to terminate their pregnancies, the fetuses needed no specific protection under the law. Their argument was frivolous at best.

[onenote]

27. +1

[infullview]

7. I guess this was just a bridge too far to cross.

If they went with this, the next step taken by the Catholic church would be to outlaw contraception as it would be murderous to a new person.

[nuxvomica]

8. It seems pretty clear to me that personhood legally begins at birth

That same 14th Amendment limits citizenship to those born or naturalized. Why specify birth if it's not an obvious delimiter of personhood? And it's not like the foetus has no personhood rights as it enjoys the rights of the woman carrying it. The woman is the person. To think of this any other way creates too many absurdities and perils.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Good point

particularly the literal wording of "born or naturalized". None of these embryos or fetuses are "born" otherwise they would be "infants/babies".

This is why those test scenarios being done by pregnant activists driving in HOV lanes have taken on such veracity of the state of affairs today where they can show how far the right has gone to call an unborn fetus "a person"... until it isn't, at least when it comes to something as simple as carpooling.

[nuxvomica]

17. Just yesterday, I heard someone refer to a "4-month-old baby"

Meaning, a foetus after four months of gestation!? They RW tries to "beg the question" by using such obviously absurd nomenclature, and they seem to ignore the woman's personhood in these discussions, as though that doesn't matter. Deceit is the signature symptom of corruption so even if I agreed with the anti-choicers I would wonder whether their rhetoric has already robbed their position of any virtue.

[Wounded Bear]

11. This nt

[Lonestarblue]

13. Yes. When you can breathe on your own, you're a person.

Before then, you’re essentially a parasite needing a host.

[LeftInTX]

15. A fetus is not a parasite.

A parasite will always need a host.
A fetus becomes a person after it is born.

A fetus is developing, so that it can live outside the womb.
A parasite is a parasite forever. A parasite harms the host and survives by multiplying within the host

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/about.html#:~:text=A%20parasite%20is%20an%20organism,protozoa%2C%20helminths%2C%20and%20ectoparasites.&text=Entamoeba%20histolytica%20is%20a%20protozoan,necessary%20to%20view%20this%20parasite.

[treestar]

21. +1

"parasite" is a word not helpful in the debate. Only gives the opposition a weapon.

[melm00se]

28. A preemie

on a ventilator?

[Bayard]

9. Hypocrite of the highest order!

"If and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth." So, he's saying fetuses have no rights before birth? Then why overturn Roe?

[Deminpenn]

12. Shows the rw SCOTUS men and their female enabler

ACB understand their overturning Roe was a big mistake no matter how much Alito tries to brush criticism aside.

Even though FDR failed in his court packing plan, just the fact that he tried it gave SCOTUS pause and they never overturned a New Deal program after it. Overturning Roe might just have been this SCOTUS' "oh
s--t" moment.

[calimary]

19. I like that! the "SCOTUS 'oh shit' moment"!

You just nailed it, Deminpenn!

Well done, my friend!

Wonder if more of these bullshit purported “fetal ‘rights’” cases will be declined, too?

[Ford_Prefect]

14. They saw this one was a loser on form and substance both. They would take up the subject

once they are provided with a better case to try. Medicine, Science, personal rights all have no place in the current Scuttle US.

[MiHale]

16. I tell'em "Get your religion outta my government."

It’s past time to tax them, they want to play with the government kids, you got to pay.

[cstanleytech]

24. Exactly. I do not mind tax exemptions within reason to any church however

such exeptions are NOT a Constitutional right and if a church or church officials wish to insert the power of their church in the politics of our country they should not be granted tax exemption status.

[Pinback]

18. Bad Fetus is gonna be pissed!

[Marthe48]

20. But is it on the shadow docket?

>sarcasm<

Try to keep the spotlight on the actions of the unelected, despotic liars!

[cstanleytech]

22. The Constitution does not give civil rights to a fetus.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. It didn't give it to corporations either

but somehow... some way....

[cstanleytech]

25. Aye, I know and it was an absurd ruling.

[BumRushDaShow]

26. Agree

[Hekate]

29. A bridge too far or a case of the time not being ripe for this case?